


The Wall Between

by eugene6022



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Azkaban, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-05-14 03:49:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14762043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eugene6022/pseuds/eugene6022
Summary: Sirius Black doesn't know how long he can stay sane in Azkaban. The only thing keeping him from going over the edge is the sarcastic man on the other side of his cell wall.





	1. Chapter 1

“I’m going to go mad in here,” Sirius declared on the fourth day. How pitiful was that he thought, that he broke after only four days in solitary confinement. His mother would hate to think that all of her hard work at abusing him hadn’t carried a lasting love for solitude into adulthood.

“Just more mad, I expect. Most people are already completely bonkers before they step foot in Azkaban.”

Sirius jumped and hit his head on his cell ceiling, “Bloody hell, am I hearing voices.”

“Why, yes. That’s what we call a conversation. You see, you hear a voice, interpret the sounds, and formulate a response with that thick skull of yours.”

“Is this in my head? Are you a figment of my imagination?”

“How on earth are we supposed to test that?” The voice wondered with a laugh in his tone.

“Dunno.  Say something I wouldn’t think of.”

“My dear friend, I would be hard-pressed to say something you  _ would _ think of, what with your lack of creativity.”

Sirius had begun to crawl, pressing an ear to the walls to test where the voice crescendoed and diminished. He had to keep asking it questions though, to keep it talking.

“What’s your name?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know?”

“A side effect of the dementors, I’m afraid. I don’t know who I am. Or how long I’ve been here. Or if I really exist. For all, I know, maybe I am a voice in your head.”

“You certainly seem high functioning for a prisoner trapped in here long enough to forget his name.”

“Am I a he? That’s nice. I don’t know what that means.”

“Well, you have a dick, don’t you? Yeah? Just check real quick and if the answer is affirmative, you’re a he.”

Sirius had found the spot in the wall where the voice rang the loudest. He marked it with an X using blood from an old, festering wound on his arm. 

“Are you flirting with me?”

“I guess you found your dick then,” Sirius muttered, “You’re rather sarcastic, did you know that?”

“We all find our ways to survive. Azkaban strips you down to the bare bones of your personality.”

“And your most base instinct is sass?”

“Essentially, yes. An admirable vice. I doubt you’ll be up for conversation much longer, when yours kicks in.”

Sirius doubted very much that the bare bones of his personality were as harmless as sarcasm. He would probably end up like Bella, bloodthirsty and insane. Just as his family would have wanted.

“I look forward to it.”

“As do I. So, what is  _ your  _ name then?”

For a frightening moment, Sirius could not remember. He looked down at his sliced arm, as though it might provide answers. There was a tattoo in the crook of his right elbow, a deer chasing a dog. The fresh cut seemed to be intentionally near the tattoo, perhaps to cut out an element of it.

“Sirius,” Sirius’s mouth said while he was thinking of other things.

“Sirius. I like that name. Mind if I borrow it?”

“It’s  _ my _ name, you can’t borrow it,” Sirius sounded petulant. He didn’t know how he was the one to sound petulant when the other man had just asked to borrow his name.

“How do you think the Johns of the world feel? There are millions of people that borrowed their name.”

“Alright, then I’ll call you John.”

The man didn’t reply. The silence--only a minute of it--seemed longer than the first two days of silence in his cell.

“What?” Sirius whined.

“I don’t think my name is John.”

“I never said it was. I said I’m going to call you John.”

“I think I knew a John, before all this.”

“Well John, with millions of borrowed Johns, I think we all know a John or two.”

“My John was different.”

“All of our Johns are different, John.”

“I don’t know if I like talking to you, Sirius.”

“I don’t know if I like talking to you either, John.”

They talked until Sirius fell asleep, tired for the first time since arriving in Azkaban.

* * *

 

“John, are you awake?”

John was quiet for a bit, which must’ve meant he was asleep because he couldn’t shut-up when awake. It was a bit like listening to a very boring, very mean, very sarcastic radio station.

“Yes, Sirius.”

“What did you do to get into Azkaban?”

“I killed someone.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I dunno, you don’t look like you could kill someone.”

“You don’t know what I look like.”

“Describe yourself.”

“I don’t know what I look like.”

“Neither do I.” Sirius was being honest. He couldn’t remember his reflection, although it couldn’t have been more than a month ago since he’d last seen it. 

He touched his hair. It was always brushing his shoulders now and he wondered if he would ever be able to cut it again. It was greasy and grimy, but untangled because he kept running his hands through it out of boredom. He relayed this information to John.

John paused for a minute, then said, “My hair is short. Kind of curly, I think, but it’s dirty now, so it’s just fluffy. Like cotton.”

“How do you keep your hair short?”

“I break it. In between my fingers. I can’t stand it long, and it doesn’t matter what I look like when no one can see you.”

“On the contrary. I can see you now. I can see your hideous hair, all broken and frayed.”

“And I can hear that you’re a prat from your voice, but you don’t hear me complaining.”

Sirius laughed--actually laughed--and went on to describe his nose.

“Alright, it’s really straight. When I put my pinky underneath the tip in between my nostrils, the end of my nose just passes the first knuckle.”

“We have different sized pinkies.”

“Good point. My pinky is about--” Sirius did some quick calculations, “One tenth the length of our food trays.”

“You have enormous hands.”

“You know what that means.”

“Oh yes, enormous egos. Back to work now, Sirius, we have a job to do.”

After something like hours--at least, as long as two dementor patrols, leaving Sirius in fits of shaking sobbing and sweating--they finally had a good idea of what the other one looked like. Actually, Sirius had a better idea of what John looked like than most people he had actually seen.

He knew that John’s second toe was longer than his big toe by about two tongs of their forks. He knew that John’s knees were weirdly sparse in hair, although the rest of his legs were densely covered (Sirius had a good laugh about why John’s knees were so hairless). He knew that John’s eyebrows were straight and that he always kept them drawn toward the middle.

“You are an ugly bugger, aren’t you?” Sirius teased. 

“I don’t know, I’ve never looked in a mirror.”

“Yes, you have,” Sirius countered, “You just don’t remember it.”

“I remember it. I was six. I was cutting my hair with safety scissors to surprise my mom when she got home. My hair was blonde then, but I doubt it is now.”

There was a sizzling sound and a whimper from John as a dementor stole a spark of joy from him. Sirius ignored the sound and tried not to feel any empathy--it would only make it worse for him.

“You came to Azkaban when you were six? Christ, you killed someone when you were six?”

“I guess,” John said faintly.

* * *

 

 

John was screaming. Sirius had been sleeping, though he had no way of knowing what time of day it was. Sirius had never heard John so loud, as though he were right in the cell with him.

“Bloody hell, John, shut up.”

John didn’t hear, only kept up a piteous shriek, almost a growl. There were scuttling sounds, like kicked gravel, and then snorting. Sirius didn’t mean to do it. He had promised himself after James’s death that he would never transform again. But the sound of the wolf on the other side of their cell wall brought out Padfoot.

Sirius barked experimentally. He could smell the beast, a huge, alpha male. The werewolf quieted, then barked back. And then they were howling together, raising their chins and lamenting to the sky.

* * *

 

“Sirius?” John asked blearily the next morning.

Again, Sirius transformed out of his control back into human form. “John?”

“Remus.”

“Who the fuck is Remus?”

“That’s my name, I think. I remember it better after transforming.” Then Remus was quiet. Sirius thought he heard a sob.

“You’re a werewolf.”

“Yes,” Remus admitted.

Sirius laughed, “My roommate is a fucking werewolf. My mother would have a fit.”

“You’re in Azkaban. Your mother should be having a fit anyway.”

“Oh, she is,” Sirius barked out a laugh. “But mostly because I’m a filthy blood-traitor and a Gryffindor. Being in this place might be the proudest she’s ever been.”

Remus, for once, couldn’t think of anything to say. In the pause between their words, the oppressive constant sucking of the Dementors seemed to grow. Remus was sure that Sirius only spoke to alleviate some of the torture.

“So, you bit someone then? That’s how you ended up in here?”

“My mum,” Remus said without much emotion. He had no emotion left to give. “I bit her when I had just been turned, but being a muggle and all, she didn’t realize what was wrong with me. She kept me right in the house during the full moon like it was any other day. Tucked me in and everything. A neighbor who happened to be a wizard called the Aurors and I came straight here. I’d bet any amount of money that the ministry has forgotten about me.”

“You’re a muggle?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Remus said harshly.

Sirius wasn’t deterred. “It does matter. They can’t put muggles in here, even if they are werewolves.”

“My dad was a wizard, apparently. I never met him though. So I’m half-blood, but I might as well be a squib. I wasn’t raised with any magic and I hadn’t developed my powers before I came in here.”

“That’s evil. They can’t do that to a kid,” Sirius hissed. The dementors didn’t suck out his feeling of injustice, and Sirius never knew feeling angry could feel so good.

“They can. The only magic I ever saw was the ministry of magic when I went in for my hearing.”

“That’s rubbish. You would have been an excellent student at Hogwarts.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You’re bloody brilliant, that’s why.”

“You barely know me.”

Sirius sighed. “I thought we’d been over this already, Remus John. We have plenty of time to get to know each other. We have the rest of our lives and don’t think I won’t give you a five-hundred question test to prove to you that you’re bloody brilliant. I’ve never met anyone who thinks as quickly as you do.”

Remus clung to the warm feeling that follows a compliment before a dementor from across the tiny island greedily sucked it from him. He shuddered and gasped. 

“Can I tell you something?” Sirius said, his voice low, although there was nothing human to hear them.

“Hmm...not without me reporting it to the press, I’m afraid. I’m a terrible gossip.”

Sirius snorted, but that was taken away too. “I’m innocent.”

“Of what?”

“Of my crime. I never killed those people, it was someone else and they framed me.”

Remus was silent for so long, Sirius wondered if he had fallen asleep. Then he was silent for so long, Sirius wondered if he had imagined their whole interaction over the past week. Maybe it was only his first day in Azkaban and every day there was going to feel this long. If so, he would have to--

“Sirius, the ironic thing is, if you’re really innocent, you might just survive this place.”

 

* * *

 

“Merry Christmas,” Remus said one day. 

“How can you tell?” Sirius responded. He was feeling weaker lately. He had taken to turning into Padfoot whenever it all became too much, feeling guilty every time he did so for leaving Remus alone. But Remus’s original prognostication--that Sirius wouldn’t keep his mind very long--seemed to be coming true, and Sirius had to use whatever strategies were at his disposal to make sure that didn’t happen.

“I can’t. I’ve just decided that it must be time for Christmas.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Sirius scoffed.

“S’not,” Remus sounded tired. They were both so tired, it was possible at any given moment that one of them was only talking in their sleep. “We deserve a Christmas. Tell me, what would you get me for Christmas if we were on the outside?”

“We don’t know each other on the outside.”

“Say we did. Say we met at Hogwarts and were in the same house. Say we were the exact same age and we shared a dormitory with a couple other blokes and worried about detentions and homework.”

“And we’ve kept in touch after Hogwarts, in this imaginary scenario?” Sirius said. He did not feel happiness, exactly. But it was a nice feeling. A feeling that the dementors couldn’t touch.

“Obviously. We’re roommates. We have a flat in muggle London. I’m a school teacher, you’re a...”

“...A bass player in a famous band,” Sirius filled in for him. 

Remus sighed, and Sirius really could imagine him as a school teacher, sighing just like that at some poor student. “You aren’t playing right, Sirius. The game only works if it’s realistic, otherwise, it’s just ridiculous.”

“Oh, yes, we wouldn’t want to be ridiculous,” Sirius snarled. “Alright, fine. I work in charms. I am working on a project in a lab to discover how Muggle technology and magic can be used together.”

“That’s oddly specific.”

“Because it’s real. Or it would have been if the war hadn’t happened.”

“Fine. We’re both home for the holiday and we’re sitting in front of a magical fire because we don’t have a chimney so we can’t start a real fire.”

“And we both have stockings that we decorated with glitter glue. Mine says Padfoot--that’s the nickname for my animagus--and yours says...wolfy.”

“Wolfy? That’s the best you can do?”

“Howler.”

“No.”

“Lupine.”

“How about Moony?”

Sirius considered that then nodded, although Remus--Moony, John, whatever-- couldn’t see him. “Alright, yours says Moony. And your stocking is boring and mine is awesome.”

“No, yours is a fucking mess because you got too excited with the glitter glue and you charmed it to sing Christmas carols and mine is sophisticated and timeless.”

“I open my stocking first. Of course, these are just the small presents. James got me some Zonko’s products. Lily sent me a locket with a moving picture of Harry and me. And you gave me--”

“Well, of course, I’m going to get you something else as well,” Remus said. He was a good actor. He sounded as though he really were embarrassed that he hadn’t gotten Sirius anything special. “I just bought you a quill with color changing ink--that was just about the most amazing piece of magic I ever saw at the ministry.”

“Shh, don’t break character. Seriously, thank you for the quill. I’m sure my boss will appreciate that everything I write her from now on will be in a rainbow. Go on, open your presents.”

“I don’t have anyone to give me presents.”

“Rubbish. James and Lily love you. Harry even drew you a picture, although I think he spat up on it a little. James got us both dog treats, as usual, the fucking wanker. But he also got you--”

“A travel brochure of Inverness. He knows that I want to go there, that I’m saving up the money to take a holiday.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say James is in love with you,” Sirius said, “Should I be jealous?”

“Darling, you know I’m only yours. Lily gave me an igneous rock she found in South America when she went for work.”

“I guess Lily doesn’t like you as well as James if she’s giving you rocks in your stocking. Maybe she actually  _ is _ jealous.”

“No,” Remus explained with exasperation, “She, unlike you, listens when I talk about fossils of magical creatures!”

Sirius laughed. He could imagine it more and more each second. He and Remus, sitting in front of the fire, the knees of their crossed legs touching as they threw wrapping paper at each other. He could see it more vividly than the pressing darkness all around him.

“Is it time for the bigger gifts?” Sirius transitioned, “Me first.”

“Shoot,” Remus said.

“Alright. It’s just an envelope, but don’t be disappointed. Go on, open it.”

In his head, the clearest picture he had, clearer than real life had ever felt, Sirius saw Remus’s confused smile. He slowly slid a finger under the wax seal and scanned the beautiful cursive writing.

“What is it?”

“It’s from Minerva McGonagall, the Transfiguration professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It offers you a job--more of an internship-- as a groundskeeper at the school. It’s only temporary though until you finish your schooling. Then she wants to train you as the defense against the dark arts professor.”

Remus didn’t say anything, either in Sirius’s vision or on the other side of the craggy wall in Azkaban. Remus stared at the paper in his hands as though it were a brick of solid gold. He looked close to tears and Sirius moved to sit beside him and put an arm around his shoulders. Sirius could  _ feel _ the wiry body beneath his arms, he would have sworn it.

“I have something for you too,” Remus said after a moment of prolonged silence. Moony shifted in his arms, but instead of reaching for a gift under their struggling tree, kissed Sirius full on the mouth. His lips were warm and tasted of the coffee and cinnamon rolls they had just enjoyed. “You know, I really love you,” Sirius heard Remus say.

But that wasn’t possible because Remus was still kissing him, now full on and slowly, holding promises of wonderful things to come. Why would Remus sound so tearful in this perfect moment?

“I really love you too,” Sirius might have said. Or maybe he only thought it loud enough. Then he hit the water and he spluttered. 

The water was so cold that every joint screamed. He struggled against the currents that wanted to hold him down. He was somersaulting through darkness and pain and suffocation. By some miracle, he made his way to the surface and managed to float on his back for just a few seconds. Above his head, in the leaning tower of darkness, he could see a pale face  _ smiling _ down at him. Then black hands pulled the face from the window and Sirius had to start swimming.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sirius goes back to visit Remus in Azkaban

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little shorter, sorry about that. I'll try to update soon.

He is dry. He is full. He is warm. He is with his best friends. The world is safe. And he is miserable.

James pushes the cup of tea closer to him for the millionth time and he and Lily exchange yet another concerned look. Even Harry is worried. Usually such a precocious baby, now he just clutches at his mother’s sweater and silently, almost imploringly, looks up at her.  
Everything is exactly how Sirius had wished six months ago. The war was over. You-Know-Who defeated, for now, Harry’s new scar the only remnant of a once powerful wizard. After only one terrifying and almost deadly conversation with James and one painful sip of veritaserum, his name had been cleared. It was almost comical how everything had come together. And yet nothing was right.

“Sirius, you know you can talk to us,” Lily kept her voice low. They thought he was sick, after all, and perhaps he was.

Sirius just nodded.

“I’d do anything for you, mate. After I suspected you as the spy and everything, I owe you that.”

“Anything?”

“You know my word is good.”

“Take me back to Azkaban.”

\--------------------------------------

It takes James three weeks to process Sirius’s request to visit Azkaban. Sirius personally has his suspicions that Potter is doing it on purpose. He and Lily keep looking at one another at odd moments with disturbed or pitying expressions. Sirius knows how he looks: bones showing through his clothes, skins translucent, eyes sunken and tortured. But he can’t bring himself to care about his appearance; no doubt this lack of narcissism worries James the most.

“Did you get permission?” Sirius asks the second James comes home from work.

Lily is cutting Sirius’s hair to what she considers ‘an acceptable length’. Harry sits on Sirius’s lap and Sirius waves chopped off pieces of his own hair in front of the little boys' eyes to entertain him.

James sighs like an old man. They all had aged forty years during the war. “Yes.”

Sirius jumps up, swiftly placing Harry on the ground. Lily’s slicing charm nicks his neck from his sudden movement, but he doesn’t care.

“Well, then what are we waiting for?”

“We can go in the morning. We need to prepare. Eat something, Sirius. And try to sleep at least a little.”

“You’re coming as well?”

“I’m not about to let you go alone. Especially since you won’t tell me why on earth you would want to go back there.”

Sirius smiles at his best friend.

\----------------------------------------

There is something comforting about the instant lack of feeling as Sirius and James stepped off the boat onto the craggy shores of Azkaban. James is shaking and pale, but Sirius feels normalized. The month away from Azkaban had been harder than this. Everything in the outside world is oversaturated with color, everything is too loud, everything tastes too sweet.

James’s Patronus guides them up the stairs. Prisoners seep toward the edge of their cells like a congealed potion and hang onto the bars, their eyes following the procession with ardent apathy. The Patronus stops outside a cell, its antlers butting toward the bars.

This prisoner emerged slowly, inches of his form illuminating as he crawled toward the light. His eyes were nearly closed against the brightness, his entire face screwed up in pain. Sirius breath caught in his throat. The apathy that had filled him like anesthesia since arriving in Azkaban vanished painfully. He was angry, joyful, confused, relieved, nervous, pained, wistful, nostalgic all at once.

Remus had described each of his individual features well. But in his mind, Sirius had puzzled together the pieces completely incorrectly. Remus somehow looked both old and young at the same time. His eyes were wide and almost innocent, though Sirius knew innocent was the first to die in Azkaban; yet premature wrinkles and some grey hairs made him look twice his age. He emaciated body could have fit half-way through the cell bars. Sirius remembered how he had looked--still looked--after leaving Azkaban, and his stay had only been about a month. Remus had lived here all his life.

Remus held out his hand toward James’s Patronus, and the stag nudged his palm with its nose. Remus smiled the way young children sometimes smile in pictures, their lips turned up but not looking remotely happy.

“Remus,” Sirius said his voice breaking.

“Back so soon, Sirius?” Remus said. His voice brought memories and snippets of conversation rushing back to him. Now that Sirius knew the face behind all of those sarcastic words, he thought the soft timbre of Remus’s voice perfectly matched his appearance.

“Did you miss me?”

“You were only gone a minute. I managed perfectly fine without you.”

“I wasn't. I wasn’t perfectly fine without you.” Sirius sat crossed-legged right in front of the bars in the shadow of the Patronus. He thought he could stay here forever, talking to Remus like old times under the protection of his best friend.

“Well, obviously,” Remus said, grinning insanely. “I don’t know how you ever managed without me.”

Sirius reached through the bars, and it was like reaching into a cold bath. Remus reached toward him and their fingers touched briefly. It was like touching ice covered in sand, Sirius thought. But it was thrilling. These were the hands that were attached to the body that was attached to the mind that was attached to the words that had saved him. Sirius could have held Remus’s hand forever. That is if Remus hadn’t yelled in shock and scrambled back into the cell.

“No, no, no,” Remus stuttered.

“What’s wrong?” Sirius was panicked. Remus was shaking, holding his head and pulling out his hair, mumbling ‘no’ over and over.

“You aren’t real!” Remus shouted, his words echoing around the cell block.

Sirius suddenly understood, When Remus had said ‘you were only gone a minute’, it was because, in his mind, Sirius had never left.

“I am real, I promise. We just touched hands. Could I do that if I weren’t real?” Sirius spoke softly, like approaching a wounded animal. “Calm down, Remus. There’s no need to panic.”

Then Remus went completely still and an impassive expression crossed his face. When he spoke, his voice was exactly like the sarcastic git Sirius had only spoken to out of boredom and fear of losing himself. “He says in a panicked voice. Honestly, you sound like a scared eleven-year-old who won’t go on the Hogwarts Express because his mummy isn’t going with him.”  
Sirius blinked. It was so unexpected, he didn’t know exactly what to say. “Remus..? What’s going on?” He asked uncertainly. Remus sneered back and it was so...mean. So petty, so obviously intent on hurting Sirius, but hurting him in a schoolyard-bully sort of way.

“What are you even doing here? Have you come just to stutter at me, or do you have something to say?”

“Remus,” Sirius said thickly, “Let me help you. Please. Remember how we helped each other, how we worked together here?” Sirius reached through the bars as far as he could and managed to grab at Remus’s ragged sleeve. He pulled Remus’s arm toward him, and Remus didn’t fight against it but kept his arm completely limp, heavy as a corpse. Sirius could only think to place Remus’s hand over his heart and clutch it there with both of his own hands.

Something in Remus’s beady eyes broke, but it was too dark for Sirius to recognize it in time. With surprising strength, Remus pulled Sirius by the shirt up to the bars so Sirius’s face smacked against them painfully. Remus was breathing heavily and spitting with fury as he hissed menacingly in Sirius’s face.

“Don’t you ever come back here. If I ever see your face again, I swear I will fucking kill you, do you understand?”

Sirius couldn’t even nod, as his face was pulled too close to the bars. He opened his squished mouth, but couldn’t think of anything to say. Remus was terrifying to him right now. He was crying from anger and shaking, seemingly with the effort of restraining himself from hurting Sirius. There was an expression on his face that made Sirius positive he was either going to rip out his throat or kiss him.

Then Remus let him go, and he wheeled back, almost falling down the stairs, if not for James catching him.

“C’mon Sirius, let’s go,” James said in an uncertain and fearful voice, a couple octaves higher than normal.

Sirius retreated without breaking eye-contact. Only as the light of the Patronus receded from his cell did Remus’s expression change to carefully uncaring again, and he sagged into a sitting position against the wall where he used to hear a voice of sanity.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
